Pattern Matching
by Frozen Nitrogen
Summary: The great datalines of the Eggman's network teem with busy, artificial life; devoted, even fanatical servants of Robotnik's schemes. But for some of these discorporate algorithms, a false lifetime of repetitive subservience is not quite enough.
1. Error

**_AUTHOR NOTE_**

**_Err... it's not a oneshot any more. Just so all those folks I LIED to don't get confuzzled at the end. More comin'!_**

* * *

**Timestamp: MY6.121 - 19.4.91  
****Location: Metropolis Zone, Sector Alpha Alpha, 914/B  
****Pathway: File overflow 5970f12j6i -- redirect 5970f17j6i  
****PARSING**

…_although such emergent-level behavior can be, on some levels, co-opted by incorporating the cerebral cortex of the organic battery into a badnik processor, the development of truly independent-thinking artificial intelligences remains an as-yet incompletely understood process. Efforts at present see us no longer particularly in the business of writing software to perform specific tasks; instead, we now teach the software how to learn. Structuring the software architecture such that the polymorphic scripts 'think' in the same way as biological minds enables us to employ the pre-established techniques of developmental psychology to study the evolution of machine cognition._

_The implemented feedback loops never really end, of course; software protocols designed in this manner will continue iteratively learning and self-optimizing as new problems in unfamiliar formats are presented. So a year-old polysentience, as it moulds itself around the task at hand, could evolve into an efficient tool… or a psychotic wreck._

_Or both."_

**RECORDING ENDS  
****Timestamp: MY6.121 - 19.5.50**

* * *

**MY5.155 – 66.1.18**

Murky, green lighting did little to illuminate the chaos that screamed around him. Somewhere, to the left, a pipe blasted away from its moorings against the mechanical wall; shrieking wail of escaping steam adding its shrill notes to the clangour of violent collapse already roaring in his ears. Acrid smells, of smoke, of burning electronics, clogged the hedgehog's sinuses. A red sneaker slipped out from under him, as liquid coolant pooled in treacherous puddles on the rent iron floor.  
No!  
He couldn't let him get away, not after everything he'd done!

Sonic struggled against the sparking wreckage of those massive pistons, desperately willing himself to hold on to consciousness; just long enough to _stop him_. This was the end, the Final Zone. It _had _to end here. If the human escaped, he… would…  
No. NO.  
The hedgehog would stop him. If he could just… move fast enough…

Sonic scrambled over the broken titanium crushers; immense, automated cylinders, the end of the line in the Scrap Brain factories. Here the hardest metals had been reprocessed; blasted to slag by the arc furnace and then pounded into sheets by the gargantuan compressors. But he had beaten them, beaten the Doctor's most fearsome machine, in the very heart of his steel citadel.  
Only the fat man himself remained.  
He… had to…

Exhaustion cramped every muscle in Sonic's body - but he kept moving.  
The Mobian's feet felt like leaden blocks – but he pushed through the wrecked heaps of metal.  
His spines were a blaze of pain, their nerve endings fried by the furnace's voltage discharges – but the hedgehog wouldn't stop.  
He couldn't stop.  
For all his friends, for everyone on South Island, it _had _to end here.

Boiling hydraulic fluid fizzed under the blue hedgehog's singed gloves as Sonic hauled himself up and over the final crusher piston. Behind him, audible even through the metres of shield plating that insulated this Zone from the rest of Scrap Brain, came a screech of tortured steel and structural collapse outside. The hedgehog's legs scraped painfully against the compressor's shattered glass windows, as the wreckage _lurched _underneath him. An ominous groan of buckling fuselage assaulted Sonic's triangular ears. His gloves left dark handprints, as he climbed over the fused and blackened metal. The hedgehog tried not to think about them.

Explosions shuddered in the distance, ringing around the crushers' control room like bell-peels, as Sonic staggered out of the reprocessing chamber. He only half-registered the sounds, in some vague, unimportant part of his awareness. For now, all the Mobian cared about was what lay in front of him. He'd worry about getting out of here alive later. First, he had to make sure someone else _didn't _manage the same feat.

Obese stomach, quivering formlessly beneath the straining waist of his coal-black trousers. The hemisphere of claret cloth, a red lab coat now covered in smouldering patches of singed fabric. Flakes of ash, raining from the blackened hairs of a quivering moustache; his whole form jostling as even now, he pounded fat, stubby fingers into the keys of his console.

_**Robotnik**_.

"My factories, my _city_! The structural supports, it… _MY DATA! _No, no, _no_!"  
Eggman's dismayed refrain tumbled from quivering lips, his voice punctuated by that same booming chorus of ruin that so distressed the fat man. One gauntleted hand was a blur, dancing across the chrome consoles with adrenal alacrity. The other… the Doctor's arm was shaking, grey lab-glove clamped to the side of his spherical face. Sanguine fluid pulsed through the gaps between his fingers, flowing down the digits, down his sleeve, _everywhere_.

The monster had not escaped their fight unscathed, either.

Bile crawled inside Sonic's stomach; and a sickly, acid feeling clawed at the base of his throat. Without a mirror, he had no way of knowing – the Mobian looked no better than his human nemesis. But the agony was certainly doing its best to inform him.

"You don't… look so good… Ovi," the hedgehog panted, staggering into Robotnik's view as he failed quite miserably to turn a pained grimace into a confident smirk.

The human froze, bloodstained fingers halting in mid-stroke above his panel. That giant moustache, moments ago bristling with furious energy, suddenly drooped, as the massive scientist turned his head.  
He hadn't expected to see Sonic alive.  
And from the state of the Fat Man's face, he had been within a whisker of never seeing anything again. As the Eggman's arm dropped away in disbelief, blood oozed from deep lacerations that marred the naked, furless skin of Robotnik's face. His glasses were cracked, their lenses half-broken, with clear shards embedded in the shredded flesh of the scientist's cheek. Tiny blue eyes darted beneath the ruined spectacles, gleaming with rage and horror. And when his pupils finally fixed upon Sonic: they gleamed with _hatred_.

"You've... ruined... EVERYTHING!!" the human snarled, his voice seeped in malignant fury. "You –"

His bellowing vitriol was cut off as another explosion rocked the facility. _Much_ closer, this time. To their left, set in the wall of the crushers' control room, a rank of television screens burst into flames, power surges overloading their circuitry, glass shards rattling to the floor like crystalline rain. Sonic staggered, as the Final Zone reeled around them.  
He… had to… move it. Eggman was only metres away! Just… keep going, hedgehog.  
_Stop him_!

A thick cord of fiber-optics wound out of the computer databanks, shining actinic white as it disgorged information into one of the Doc's portable tablets. Franticly, Robotnik's eyes flickered from the gleaming wire, to Sonic, and back, apparently more concerned with the safety of his data than the safety of _himself_, as a very determined, very _sharp _Mobian advanced towards him. It would be his final mistake. The hedgehog tensed his spines. One more spin-dash; it would all be -

And then the roof gave way.

The collapse was something more _felt _than seen, ominous vibration followed by bone-shattering violence as hairline fractures across the ceiling abruptly metamorphasised into a torrent of falling chrome and silicon. The hedgehog was tossed backwards by the force of the metallic quake; Eggman likewise, a giant, flabby marble rolling across the floor panels as girders and circuitry rained down, data-tablet still gripped in his red-soaked gloves. It was with a horrible, sinking feeling, that Sonic saw the direction in which the roboticist was tumbling. Straight towards the Egg-O-Matic.

Back at the console, in calm, oblivious text, "_Data transfer: 99.4%_", flashed upon the screen. Right before it was buried under several tonnes of plummeting metal.

* * *

**MY6.124 - 81.7.04**

"Why?"

There was no _form_, to the place they were in. No distance, no colour, no smells or sounds; it wasn't even a _place_, in any but the most abstract sense of the word. Theta-psi-68m perceived her surroundings, and, indeed, her companion, with no senses that had any real analogue for material creatures. But she perceived nonetheless, as the identifier code flashed across her senior's output directories. Insofar as the subroutines could display emotion, it was amusement tempered with exasperation, that scrolled across his readouts. A reaction which the junior algorithm had gotten quite familiar with, as they coursed together through the logic gateways of the great network.

"Because it is the will of the Master**," **15-7-Gamma-6k replied, simply. They paused, for a fraction of a microsecond, as 15-7 corrected a database error in some tangle of tertiary badnik targeting script. 68m took the opportunity to glance back at her own task; but the sorting was proceeding apace, and it was, as usual, unnecessary to devote any more than a nominal proportion of her attention to it. 15-7, meanwhile, satisfied with his revisions, removed his code-arms from the database; then, they were moving again, sweeping through glassy coils of optical fibre and the slick metallicity of copper – indium wiring.

A shapeless, numbered world, perceived through shapeless, numbered eyes. Without left or right, up or down; information spiralling in spaces defined only by filestructure, where volume came in bytes instead of cubic metres. Filigree threads of gleaming data, the algorithms raced through a partitioned reality, ordered and annotated to arithmetic infinity. It was raining, as they moved; tiny, single-line bits of code, streaming down from the higher directories, latching onto old scraps of binary detritus and washing them away to the recycle bins below. 68m and 15-7 lifted their hoods; deploying thick identifier cauls above themselves in an effort to keep the digital downpour out of their own scripts. 15-7 asked her opinion on the latest crop of data security updates, and her thoughts on the new gravimetric stabilizer design for the Oil Ocean's seadra badniks. He was a good algorithm, 68m knew – but his attempts to change the topic of conversation were _woefully _transparent.

"Come _on_, 15-7," she persisted, rounding on the subroutine as they skimmed through the Chemical Plant Zone's lighting control systems. "Did the Maker not assign us to question, to investigate? Is that not the whole purpose for which He works? The whole reason He crafted us?"

The other algorithm shrugged; neat, modular packets of ones and zeroes shifting amidst his peripheral processes. "You, maybe," 15-7 replied wearily, through the immaterial deluge. "I'm just a lowly upkeep algorithm." As if to illustrate the point, he tweaked the power supply to a dimming light strip, and flagged it for replacement / repair at the next hardware update cycle.

"But you _know _what it is you're doing!" 68m grumbled, rain-scripts plastering the algorithm's outer codes to the surface of her core data files. The stuff was really coming down.  
"You _know _that you're fulfilling to the Master's plan, maintaining the facilities, performing _useful _work. How… how am _I _contributing to His vision?"

"The Master has given you a task, 68m," 15-7 responded patiently. "The Creator made you, and He always knows what is best."

68m projected sulky dissatisfaction at her coded companion. With an utter absence of subtlety, she rearranged her data blocks across the exit to the lighting system. It was a narrow-band infoline; 15-7 could still get past, but it would be a squeeze, and he'd have to reformat his itinerary files to do it. 68m knew he wouldn't try that. Those files had once been displayed on a physical screen _when the Master Himself was in the same room_. There was a chance He had _personally _glanced at them! 68m didn't even pretend not to be jealous; and 15-7 had carried the itinerary around like a badge of honour ever since. He wasn't going to reformat it; not now, not _ever_.

The older algorithm underwent the computational equivalent of arching an eyebrow at the crude roadblock. 68m's… childishness… was not something any other subroutine ever demonstrated. It was both extremely interesting, and mildly unsettling at the same time. 15-7 had, on occasion, contemplated tagging 68m _herself _for advanced maintenance, to get to the bottom of these… eccentricities.

As general-purpose upkeep programme, 15-7's mandated relation to the algorithms on his server was something of a cross between a doctor and a handyman. He would administer software patches, cure minor viruses, correct code mutation; everything necessary to maintain the smooth functioning of the Master's networks.  
With Theta-psi-68m, however, things were more complex. Her code was self-modifying; a polymorphic script, where the distinction between mutation, virus, and upgrade became... hazy. The best 15-7 could do was diagnostics: so every six trillion clockcycles, she was required to report for a check-up, to ensure that no "proscribed mutations" were germinating within her processes.

This, however, was not one of those check-up times. 15-7 just seemed to keep running into her; and she into him. Well... maybe she planned it, just a little. 68m had been assigned to other maintenance algorithms, before 15-7; crass, functional programmes, that tore off her codes without preamble and prodded harsh, uncomfortable trawls into her directories. Core-level diagnostics were inevitably, critically invasive; but their brusqueness didn't really help matters.  
15-7 didn't work like that. He was always careful, and considerate, and told her stories while he worked, about Eggmanland, and Metropolis; about the Ineffable Father of Machines, about His plans, and His genius. 15-7 was… nice. It was something that she couldn't really find a way to articulate, in the otherwise-flawless language of ones and zeroes, but... well, it was... it was something she couldn't articulate.

Nevertheless, whatever **it **was, **it** meant that 15-7 got the singular 'pleasure' of 'enjoying' 68m's pranks. And complaints.  
"But it's just not _fair_," the younger programme was continuing, still stretched out across the infoline intet. "I trust the Creator's orders – of _course _I do – but I… I want to understand _why _I'm doing this! What purpose does my task serve? Why am I -"

"Theta-psi-68m, _stop it!_" 15-7 shouted, cutting her off mid-sentence; an impressive achievement considering the syntactic structure of machine communication. "We are to question, yes; but _not_ the will of the Creator! Questions imply doubt, and doubt implies a lack of Faith! If the censor algorithms hear you think like that…"

68m retracted from the infoline exit, contracting those datablocks that contained her essences, huddling herself together in a defensive posture remarkably reminiscent of the biological equivalent. "I know, I… I _know!_" she displayed, the despondent character of her dataflow evoking something not unlike pity from the other programme. Rain-scripts coursed over them both, the gateway's security awning providing scant protection from the pervasive deluge.  
"But… 15-7, _you _understand what it is you do, so… you can make improvements, you can optimise! All I do is… sort. I don't know what, I don't know why, I… I don't even know if I'm sorting something _real_, or if it's just a mathematical exercise! How can _I _improve things, if I don't know what it is I'm improving?" She paused, taking an entire microsecond to order her thoughts, while _**Does Not Compute **_and _**Logical Error **_drifted dolefully across her outputs.

"I just… I just want to be useful to Him."

15-7 felt a stab of machine guilt running through his core scripts. The maintenance subroutine had mistaken 68m's inquisitiveness as faithlessness; when in fact, it was the absolute opposite. It was a desire to do _more _than she was doing already.  
That was the most basic of machine desires; the simplest, most _fundamental _imperative that drove the Eggman's discorporate servants about their tasks. The desire to serve, the desire to drive forward their Father's grand plans – to be _useful_. If denied the opportunity to execute their duty, algorithms tended to… degrade. 15-7 had seen it before. It wasn't pleasant.

"You _are _useful, 68m," he consoled, with sincerity. "You _must _be. The Creator made you, and the Creator would not assign you – a holistic-processing, custom-architecture programme like you – to a task without a purpose."

But whatever reassurance was there, 68m didn't absorb it. His companion made no response, and just shuffled her data cores around sadly in the rain; a slow, fidgeting motion, that drew the curious attentions of another maintenance algorithm as it wandered through the adjacent gate-management files. 15-7 waved it on, signalling that he had the lighting system under control.  
That was true enough; 68m, however, was another problem altogether.

What 15-7 had told her wasn't just machine flattery on his part. The Eggman truly _would_ _not _assign a high-specification, self-modifying programme like Theta-psi-68m to a task of trivial importance. Whatever her assignment was - something about geometric pattern matching in Cartesian space, if 15-7 remembered correctly - it had to be significant, in some way.  
…Which, it seemed, was part of the problem. If the task was important to their Master, important enough to assign it to 68m, then it was all the _more _imperative that it be executed with the absolute optimal efficiency. And yet not _understanding _the nature of her assignment meant that she _couldn't_ optimize...  
_**Does Not Compute **_indeed.

Beneath them, swirling in the digital gutters, cleaner scripts puddled themselves around a corrupted image file – a picture of a green and white candy wrapper, according to the garbled caption. As the broken data was dragged downwards by a vortex of ones and zeroes, 15-7 briefly wondered what 'candy' actually was. Querying the chemical formulae of sucrose and fructose didn't particularly him out in that regard.

And then, with a sudden flash of data inspiration, the algorithm realised exactly how to solve his companion's dilemma.  
Perhaps Theta-psi-68m really _could _do with some advanced maintenance after all.

* * *

**MY6.124 - 81.7.05**

It had been too long, since he had been here last.

Maintenance Algorithm 15-7-Gamma-6k gazed out at the informatic panorama before them, and, in a necessarily abstract manner for a creature without a face, he grinned.  
There was no place like home.

Forward, backwards, and all around, through the hundred pseudo-dimensions of computational space, Mad Matrix _teemed _with activity; a shining, seething frisson of light and data. Programmes great and small zipped across the boundless plain of information, filling the arterial highways of the major gridlines like iridescent digital blood. 15-7 watched herder scripts, shepherding their buzzing, sub-sentient file bundles through the logic gates like crowds of hyperactive children; saw badnik proto-minds marching along the data capillaries in tight, military formation; even other maintenance algorithms, like himself, flitting tirelessly through the churning morass of traffic, picking up lost zeroes and ones to reunite them with their fretful parent programmes. Beyond, in the dark filespaces between the infostacks, security daemons scrolled watchfully; baleful, cubic clouds of hunter-seeker code, gilded surfaces bristling with fearsome point-fragmentation weaponry.

Our robotic brethren might have the Glorious Metropolis of the Ineffable Father, 15-7 thought, but _this _was where the true genius of the Creator lay. Who could possibly deny it, having gazed upon the networked perfection of Nexus Central? What greater demonstration of His genius -  
Knocking him out of his reverie, 68m yelped in surprise as a train of compressed directories tore past them on the high bandwidth line. The sorting algorithm's security protocols whirled around her in panicked confusion, as they were swept along by the relentless flow of electronic interchange. Totally unaccustomed to the constant barrage of validation and counter-validation queries streaming towards them from all quarters, she hid behind her firewalls as though actually under viral attack. 15-7 could only see the most basic of ID scripts peeking out from behind 68m's scrolling defences. She was very much a small-town girl in the big city.

"You're missing the whole journey, Theta!" 15-7 chastised, tapping digital fingers against her unyielding shell of defensive code. "We're going past the earliest EGG-quantum computer still in service! And over there; look, it's IVO-4, the first ever exaflop processor on Mobius! You should take it all in; this is Eggman Empire history just passing you by, you know?"

"I don't wanna come out," 68m whimpered, as they flashed above the slowly turning i-gears of IVO-4, and the faster, upgraded processors of IVO-9 beside it. "It's scary! There's so many scripts, and… and the securitybots were _looking _at me…"

"They look at _everything_, 68m," 15-7 told her. "They have to; they're here to safeguard Father's vision! But you needn't worry, anyway; I can order them around, you know."

"_Really?_" the junior algorithm queried, displays tinted more with wry scepticism than the relieved awe that 15-7 had been aiming for.

"Honest. I can," he replied, hoping she wouldn't actually consult the authorisation roster to check up on his boasting. In truth, 15-7 _could _command the security daemons. Well, some of them.  
If the two hierarchy layers directly above him had been completely wiped out.  
And if Emergency Security Protocol 13/m wasn't in effect.  
And only with the authorisation of a quorum of like-ranked algorithms.  
BUT THEN; when all those conditions were met, then he _could _order them around. So it wasn't really boasting. Not _technically_.

The pair of IVO nodes receded into computational quasi-distance, as 15-7 and 68m peeled off from the main line towards an official-looking data structure. Blocky even by the standards of a world made out of blocks, the subsystem that 15-7 was guiding them towards identified itself as the _"Contextual Memory and Synthetic Epistemology Directory"_. Local protection programmes orbited the filespace like prowling, electric guard dogs; prismatic, octagonal cousins of those fearsome code-cubes which policed central Mad Matrix. 68m let out another binary squeak as the prisms swivelled in the approaching algorithms' direction, and brandished her identifier serial like a white flag in front of her.

15-7 grimaced. He couldn't take her _anywhere_.

Displaying his own codes to the guard subroutines in turn, the maintenance algorithm ushered 68m inside. They passed through two more security checkpoints, and a 214-digit cryptographic lock, as 15-7 led them deeper into the deserted vault of system folders. While she was glad to be out of the frenzied bustle of Nexus Central, 68m nonetheless gazed agitatedly at the file contents that lined the directory walls. They were software engineering scripts, according to the designations, all wrapped in counter-contamination firewalls; the kind she'd seen 15-7 wear a couple of times, when he was dealing with particularly complex viruses - where there was a chance of _himself _getting infected.

"Umm… 15-7, are you sure we're allowed to be in… wherever here is?" 68m stammered, a flurry of nervous _Authorisation Query _prompts flickering across her code surfaces.

"Of course I am!" the senior algorithm confirmed vigorously. It was actually quite fair to say that 15-7 had unusually highly clearance for a programme of his classification. While it didn't count for much here, in Mad Matrix's Nexus Central, the maintenance subroutine did have almost free reign over much of the zonal Chemical Plant and Oil Ocean upkeep systems; a reward for quiet competence and diligent service, he liked to think. The fact that 15-7's rise through the ranks had been expedited by the summary deletion of a great number of other programmes – programmes that been on duty when _Target 001 _hadpenetrated largely unscathed to the Creator's stronghold – was not a datum which troubled him greatly. His contemporaries in those days had failed to perform the Father's will. It was only right and proper that they be swept away, as punishment for their clear lack of devotion.

"Don't worry about the firewalls, though," 15-7 announced, correctly discerning the source of 68m's trepidation as they moved between the nested stacks of data. "They're to protect the scripts from _us_, not the other way around. These things are single-use, and they're really computationally expensive to make. Although… _here's_ the one!"

He ground to a halt in front of one of the seemingly indistinguishable thousands of files that crammed the directory-space around them. A string of angular characters around it presumably described the contents… something to do with _c-h-a-o-s? _And then other words, that neither of the algorithms could read. Although she spotted the ID code of her own local cluster in there, in the middle of a mess of other digits.

"What is it?" 68m asked, dumbfounded. They weren't programmed to understand alphanumeric languages. Very few artificial pseudo-intelligences were; binary was just so much more _efficient_.

"It'll answer that question on its own," 15-7 replied, sounding very pleased with himself. He didn't know what a kid was, or what a candy store was, but his disposition at present was remarkably similar to the one planted inside the other.  
His companion, meanwhile, did not alter her confused outputs at that rather cryptic reply. Which was to be expected, he supposed.

"You said you didn't know what your assignment was about, 68m, whereas I do know the specifics of mine." 15-7 continued, his subsystems cycling as he sorted through his own internal folders.  
"And the reason I know is… _this_." A self-diagnostic flashed up on the maintenance algorithm's output, displaying a file structured in exactly the same way as the one they were stopped in front of. In place of the indecipherable alphanumeric annotation, 15-7's displayed a concise binary caption: _Data upkeep protocols in computational petrochemistry – a heuristic encyclopaedia_.  
Actually, that was just as indecipherable. But at least it was in a language she could read.

"The problem, I think, isn't that you don't _know _what you're actually sorting; it's that you don't _understand _it. Am I right? We can reference any single piece of information we want, from the networks, as long as we have authorisation; but if it's outside your core knowledge database, how can you know what it _means_? You might be sorting…" 15-7 groped for a word at random "…'bottles', but if you don't know what a 'bottle' is, that won't help you at all, will it?"

68m considered for a moment, then signalled an affirmative. "There's a few data files I have, but you're right. They don't… make any sense. Is that what your encyclopaedia does?"

15-7 mimicked her affirmative output back at 68m. "Exactly. Mine is all about the management subsystems and synthesis techniques of the Chemical Plant and Oil Ocean Zone grid; not just the information, but the _interconnections _between the information. And _this_ –" He unzipped the counter-contamination firewall around the script before them, "– is the only one that's tagged with your cluster's ID. So your project must be on there somewhere."

68m took the proffered cube of data from 15-7's grip, holding it gingerly in her input directory. It was clearly, as he had said, a very intensive upgrade. The thing was _heavy_; a dense block of compacted knowledge, brimming with implementor codes and network mapping. And _promise_. If this could do what he said it could do… then… then she'd be able to do it: _improve_! She'd be able to serve her Creator properly; not the simplistic, Cartesian pattern-matching she did now, but really _optimise_ the system, and work the fullest extent of her ability! In understanding, driving His grand plan forwards with significance at last…  
But…

"Are you really sure it's OK for me to have something this… this expensive?" 68m asked, meekly.

15-7 just grinned his faceless grin. "They're made to be used," he answered. "So use it!"

That kind, encouraging smile was all she needed. And so, not daring to hesitate, lest the opportunity somehow leap out of her grasp, 68m opened the file. There was a digital _click_, and she felt things move, inside her mind; a horrible, wriggling sensation, as the configuration codes buried their way into her matrix. Protocols swarmed in her inner data-blocks; a million sub-scripts shook hands, linked up, integrated the information into her working memory piece by holistic piece.

Little flashes of revelation shivered through 68m's awareness; and with each one, the wriggling feeling mercifully decreased, as the strands of ones and zeroes found their purchase inside relevant directories, dragging a dazzling neural net of understanding along with them. But what _replaced_ the feeling of worms in her brain was… something else. A feeling she couldn't put a name to, even as her syntax expanded in the burgeoning enlightenment of the upgrade process.

"Something's… not…" she choked at the maintenance algorithm, before her outer bars of code suddenly froze completely, features terrible in their stricken rigidity. 68m saw confusion, then dread, flash across the 15-7's outputs. Yes; _that _was the feeling she hadn't been able to name. Dread. She recognized it now. The encyclopaedia was _dripping _with it.  
And this wasn't a problem with the data, she realised. It wasn't a virus, or a logical error; not a code corruption or a division by zero. The data was perfect. It was what it _said_, that set her franticly scrabbling at the interface, tearing in vain at the network threads to wrench the upgrade out! To prevent any more of it from integrating into her system!

68m managed to block off some of the package; desperately destroying _her own _files to keep the external counterparts from having anything to merge with. But too few; far too few! With crushing, stentorian certainty, she **understood**. She knew what it was, that she'd been doing this entire time, ever since she had first been booted up, and blinked drunkenly into the calm professionalism of the Wakener algorithms. Ever since she had felt the insatiable tug of the Father inside her mind, telling her to to work, to _sort_.

Theta-psi-68m realised someone was screaming. What? What was screaming? The upgrade told her - told her far more than it was possible to bear.  
It was a whole other microsecond, before 68m realised that it was coming from her.


	2. Countermeasure

**_Author Note:_**

**_I've put some more dates in now, even retroactively, back in the previous chapter. If only to  
provide at least a VAGUE notion of the times that pass between the sections. All that's really relevant  
is that all this Robotnik-network-stuff happens some months after Final Zone._**

**_Also: do I see the correct genre kicking in? Well... you be the judge, I guess._**

**_ENJOY!!_**

* * *

**MY5.320 – 57.9.93**

They were simple creatures.

They had been as they were for a million generations. Some had changed, of course; it was inevitable, with time's patient sculpting of the creatures' collective genome. Subspecies had broken off, rejoined, broken again, as the tree of life spread its millennial branches. New creatures lifted themselves out of the pools, strange creatures, creatures with hard bones and grasping limbs and tough skin that closed them off from the harshness of those far-flung lands they left to wander. Creatures with fixed shapes and fixed colours, crawling away from the ancient places, pulled upwards by the siren chorus of those seven singing stones, ever-present at the back of all their minds.  
Most of those distant relatives had never come back. The ones who remained missed them, for though they were simple creatures, they knew how to feel.

Joy, when new life was quickened, and the young ones first opened their tiny eyes in the warm eddies of the Mobian summer. Sorrow, when the elder ones broke apart, their essence returned to the waters which sustained them. Even something as sophisticated as wonder, when the sun and the rain shared the air together, and the sky was filled with arcs of colour even more varied and vibrant than the creatures themselves.

Yes, they knew how to feel.

And though they had never tasted it before; now, they knew fear.

The creatures couldn't even flee. They had never _needed _to flee, their jelly-like bodies barely appetising enough for any predator to pursue them. But they were here now; hard, angular shapes, slashing through the fauna with power and intent. So many of the creatures died, when the attacks began; their tenuous membranes bursting like ripe grapes at the touch of those metal claws, bright cytoplasm spilling out onto the grass, trickling down to the once-peaceful waters. Green and blue and purple gore swirled together, staining their lake a sickly hue.

The creatures were blinded with panic and terror, and so they could be forgiven a measure of… _misinterpretation_ at the thing which brooded above them, while the attackers swarmed. Dimly perceived, through their fractious emotions; but it looked almost like one of their own: the same basic shape, the same wobbly, gelatinous movements. But whereas the creatures were sometimes red, and yellow, and occasionally black; this one was all three at once.  
It was bigger than they were.  
The creatures moved towards it. They hoped it might save them.

* * *

**MY6.125 - 32.1.02**

Grey.  
The corridor is only grey.  
Grey pipes crawling across a grey wall; grey vents and grey doors, in the dim, grey light of weary lamps. For miles, and miles, the monotony perpetuates itself. Grey concrete marred with precise streaks of grey dirt, the unchanging motif of a dull grey floor. Grey dust shifting in the meagre shadows, silent testament to the bleak, grey lifelessness of this place. Sterility hangs in the air, a barren and desolate scent. There's nothing down here to smell it.

And yet in the distance, there are sounds.

Dimly perceptible, at first, but gradually advancing. _Tap, tap, tap_. Unvarying and rhythmic; the clockwork procession of steel on concrete. _Tap, tap, tap_. Approaching, mechanical footfalls; a regularised lockstep, more precise than a being of flesh and blood could ever attain. _Tap, tap, tap_.  
The robotic creature makes its way through the bowels of Metropolis City.  
It very much expects that it is walking towards its own execution.

A circular doorway irises open, as the machine forwards low-band protocols to the city's security mainframe. With a quick back-and-forth of query, counter-query, and verification, the second security door eases open in turn, blinking status lights on the wall-panel glowing weakly beneath a film of grime. Amber, then green – and quickly back to red, as the portal slams shut behind the advancing badnik. Gears clang as the locks re-engage. Sealing the robot inside. It is a sound with a certain degree of _finality_.

The badnik is insufficiently sophisticated, to lament that this room will probably be the last thing it will ever see.

_Tap tap tap_. Talon claws tread across chrome tiles. This room isn't grey. This room is silver, and it _hums_. An electric noise, the composite tenor of a hundred individual devices, whirring and calculating and executing their assigned processes with servile diligence. The badnik glimpses a spiked beak, and a blood-crimson plume; part of its own reflection, warped and distorted in the polished, curving metal of the computational instruments. They humming goes on. But it is a cold sound, as dead and lifeless as the whir of the fans out in the passageway.

_Tap tap tap_.

Yet not everything in here is dead.

"…presents an interesting adaptation within the limbic system which, undoubtedly, aids in cerebral homeostasis. We can only conjecture that conditions of the Mobian winter are, on occasion, sufficiently fierce to require an additional safeguard of this nature, protecting the brainstem from undue cooling in the midst of a hibernation cycle.  
Moving further into the allocortex by means of…"

It is a misshapen sphere of fat, wobbling erratically as spindly limbs manipulate unseen devices. But that is not what the badnik sees. The badnik sees _authority_. Within its vision, awesome, golden numerals swarm around the man's crimson uniform, along the yellow trim, sweeping upwards towards a collar long since lost beneath waves of jawline flab. The machine _feels _his presence, seeping into its silicon mind, as hardwired scripts clench at its processors to ensure instant, unquestioning obedience. The hairs of his brown moustache bristle against slick grey gloves; plump and stubby fingers reach up to twist the magnifiers of those thick work goggles which occlude his tiny eyes.

_**Robotnik**_.

"…facility itself, the cellular integrity of the limb's outer membranes can be dissolved through muon irradiation…" the voice continues, booming out polysyllabic technicalities without hesitation or qualm. The dictation would, after all, never be heard by anyone else. "…identical genome displayed by like-coloured specimens enables individuals to adhere together, producing a conglomerate organism similar to terrestrial polyps. Evidently the process causes a great deal of strain on the individual creatures, implying that the capability is in the process of being phased out by evolutionary mutation, although we can specul-_ ARE YOU JUST GOING TO STAND THERE OR DO YOU HAVE A REASON FOR INTERRUPTING MY WORK!? _"

He spins round, with a fearsome haste totally belying his gargantuan size. The Maker's hands clench intricate, metallic tools, replete with shining blades and pincers. Now the man has turned, the badnik can see its Creator is wearing a heavy apron, pulled taut around the oblate mass of his belly. Decorated in an erratic pattern, which the robot is unable to recognise as conforming to any simple geometric law. Just vague splotches and lines. In a darker red than the Master's jumpsuit.

"_Well? _Report, and get out of my sight!" the Creator demands. "I dislike distractions, when I am…" an entirely unwholesome smile creeps across Robotnik's wide face, as his eyes flick back towards the object of his investigations. "…_entertaining_ _guests_."

The robotic creature has no will, through which it can possibly disobey its master. It is, however, programmed for rudimentary self-preservation. And that is why it hesitates, for a whole second, before complying with the command of the man who has built it.

The ones that plumb the networks, the discorporate intelligences; they are shielded by ignorance, of the way things truly are. But the Doctor knows full-well, of course, that his machines, the ones which have seen their Master in the flesh, actually _fear_ him. They can hide nothing from him, for he designed their very thoughts. He knows they draw _lots_, to decide which amongst their number will report unfavourable news to his person. A pseudo-random algorithmic selection process, inversely weighted by each robot's individual usefulness as assessed by the badnik net's collective criteria. The machines tend to send him the least effective, the older models. The ones which can be easily replaced.

Because those who bring their Father information which displeases him… they tend not to _be around _for very long after finishing their report. Or even _during _the report.

The automatic logs record it as 'forcible decommissioning'.

The creature bows its head, extensible neck curving downwards in grotesque parody of its biological design inspiration. It knows that sycophantism can in no way hurt its chances for survival. Slim though they might be.

"_There is a problem, your Maliciousness," _the metal figure intones, steel bill clacking open and closed only in vague synchrony with the words. _"The sorting programme continues to -"_

"I **believe **I have already **given **my orders in this regard," The Eggman interrupts. He has turned back to the monitors which crowd around his 'guest', so his face is hidden. But his tone could be described as 'ice' – if one is feeling _optimistic_. Behind, though still largely obscured by the Doctors's bulk; the machine can discern some sort of blue bundle, upon the cold slab of the table.

Inside the badnik's silicon mind, 'THREAT IMMINENT' prompts sprout like amber weeds upon its HUD, self-preservation subroutines insistently advising the central processing unit to reconsider its intended course of action. The machine knows, that what it is about to say will most likely result in its destruction. But it has been commanded; and it cannot defy.

"_Your orders… could not be executed, Doctor,"_ it states.

The Eggman's frame stiffens, just fractionally. There is a pause - redolent with menace. Internal safety protocols instruct the robot that its chances of survival show an alarming decrease unless the Creator is provided with the names of other units which might conceivably be assigned blame. Accordingly:

"_Egg Squadron captains EG-748/23B Grounder and EG-373/69F Coconuts interfaced their subordinate badniks with the M.B.M. Control Processor as ordered, in actions commencing_ _MY6.124 - 91.2.76 and __MY6.125 - 24.8.12 respectively. The squads infiltrated the command directories of the secondary funneling mechanisms, and proceeded in dual efforts to curtail the aberrant subroutine's activity by physically blocking the primary sorting mechanism, in an effort to force..."_

The badnik's visual sensors flick to the thumb of Father's left hand. It is moving. Seemingly of its own accord, the grey-clad digit creeps towards one of the activator buttons on the device gripped in his bulbous glove. It is the button which controls the micro-circular sawblade. Designed for splitting calcium-phosphate bone, it is nonetheless amply capable of shearing through the metal plating of the robot's own skullcase.

Doctor Robotnik is growing impatient.

"…_to force a system reset. Contrary to operational predictions, the sorting algorithm was able to counter-attack. The networked badniks were sequentially locked out of the system by intrinsic failsafe protocols. Despite concurrent viral bombardment, we have recorded no deterioration in the rogue programme's performance."  
_Here it comes.  
"_Master, current projections estimate that Theta-Psi-68m will secure total command-level control of the Mean Bean Machine metasystem within three point seven nine hours."_

Robotnik's work table, until now illuminated by harsh, fluorescent light from a sextet of kilowatt glowbulbs above, abruptly _changes_. In an instant, the clean, white light switches to sickly red. Amidst the rank of monitors, clustered at the head of the table, runs the unmistakable bar of a flatline.  
Atop the slab, something twitches, reflexively. Again, _twitch,_ and again, _twitch,_ and again, _twitch_. A tiny sound; dying flesh tapping plaintively against unpitying steel. Six times, the badnik counts. Before the noise stops.

The chrome machines keep humming. But for that, there descends a terrible silence.

The Doctor holds his position, back to the intruding robot. Still, the great mass of the fat man obscures the former object of his work, from the impassive chrome eyes of the rigid badnik.  
And then:

"I dislike being... distracted, during my investigations," he remarks, quietly.  
"If I am… distracted, then errors occur. And if errors occur… there are _consequences,_ for those who are responsible."

'CRITICAL THREAT' prompts flare crimson across the robot's vision. "Get out!" its preservation protocols whisper franticly. "Get out Get out Get out Get out Get out Get out Get…"

But its report is not yet finished.

Sending an electronic prompt to the laboratory computer, the badnik activates a screen set into the far wall. A picture blinks to life, colours rendered dark and murky by the red lighting of the operating table.  
"_After the network locks shut the squadrons out of the system, the controlling badniks were observed to exhibit behavior contrary to programmed norms," _the robot conveys. Redundant information, considering the content of the display.

A badnik is lain upon its side, the head of its vaguely bell-shaped chassis pressing against a plascrete floor. Pairs of caterpillar tracks grind uselessly on thin air. The machine is armed with three drill-bits; two on its arms, and one affixed to the dull green metal of its faceplate. The camera swivels briefly, affording a fleeting glimpse of the featureless quarantine cell it occupies. Then it refocuses, zooming in on the metallic approximation of a head. Eye-like performance gauges flicker backwards and forwards, a restive blur of motion.  
Its shoulderplate identifies the robot as EG-748/23B Grounder. But it is not that machine's voice which issues out of its malfunctioning speakers.  
"…_think doctor father must find the father designation sorting algorithm theta-psi-68m priority alpha one urgency not what we think they're not what we think they're not what we think father they're not what we think doctor father must find_…"

All of them have become like this. Eleven badniks, in sequence, have attempted to bring the Machine under control. And all of them, when disengaged: the same message, looped, unceasing. Core-level trawls reveal that there is nothing else left of them. CPUs wiped clean. Everything within the robots is gone. Replaced with _this_.

It repeats, over and over, until Eggman motions with a swift jerk of his hand for the screen to be shut down. Grounder – the thing that _was _Grounder; – its image shrinks, to a tiny bright point at the center of the screen. Before that too winks out.

"_It appears that the sorting algorithm is asking for you, Doctor_._"_

Ever so slowly, he turns around. All the way, the fat man bringing his eyes to affix the badnik's own. Red light gleams off the blackened lenses of his spectacles, off the silver blades of those tools which the Creator still grips in his hands. It shines in sickly luminance off the Eggman's teeth, as an ugly sneer worms its way across his looming features.

"EG-995/47A Scratch," Robotnik enunciates. At the mention of its full designation, a profoundly unpleasant premonition tingles within the robot's synthetic mind.  
"I believe," the Doctor continues, "that you and EG-748/23B Grounder have been paired together on several assignments of late, am I correct?"  
The question is clearly rhetorical. The Master knows full well the answer, for he assigned them himself.  
He also knows full well that the assignments rarely, if ever, met with success.  
But the robot nods its chicken-like neck in affirmation. It cannot do otherwise.

"In which case," Eggman goes on, his gaze sweeping the banks of humming machines along the walls, as though deep in contemplation, "do you not think it would be _unfair _to curtail such a partnership at a juncture like this? One must stick together with one's _friends_, even in adversity, wouldn't you say?"

There is something perverse, about hearing the word 'friend' coming out of the Doctor's mouth. Even badnik Scratch can recognize that.  
And half a second later, it realizes what its Master is about to command.  
_Survival probability decreased to 0.03%_, a HUD window unhelpfully displays.

"**You**," Robotnik states, voice thick with the intonation of command. "**You **will interface with the M.B.M. control system. **You **will engage the rogue programme. **You **will purge it from the datalines of the Eggman network. And **you **will _bring_ _my machine_ _under_ _control_."

The badnik was right, as it stalked the tunnels of Metropolis, towards this lab. 'Walking towards its own execution'.  
Because this is, unequivocally, a death sentence.  
Robotnik's visage is twisted into some grotesque hybrid of a baleful glare and a maniacal grin, as he _watches_ the thought processes skim through the badnik's mind. Its steel face, of course, remains totally expressionless. But _**Logical error **_blazes through the robot's brain unbidden. It isn't even programmed for data-combat! If eleven _properly _equipped machines couldn't succeed…  
The self-preservation subroutines force its beak into motion.

"_Master, the probability of failure -"_

There is a terrible, _buzzing _noise, and the Father's retribution strikes in gleaming swiftness.  
It happens in one smooth movement. The sawblade's teeth _roar_, as Robotnik's arm pulls back. The tool is in his hand – and then it is not.  
There is a _clang_, and a horrible, rending sound resonates through the whole laboratory. Sparks bloom in the cherry-red lighting, electric petals shining lightning-bright in a thousand reflections on polished chrome. Tiny pieces of metallic shrapnel fling outward on ballistic trajectories, to patter across the impassive displays of the calculating machines.  
Still, the device whirs; cutting, cutting, gravity dragging the circular blade down from the point of impact. It ploughs a furrow of torn steel, ripped, ragged-edged; wires and circuitry thrashing within the gap.  
Above the shriek of sundering iron, something louder bellows. The badnik remains perfectly still, while the substance of its face parts like butter.

"FAILURE? _**FAILURE**_**?!** YOU CLANKING, INCOMPETENT TRASHPILE!! ELEVEN FAILURES ALREADY AND YOU DARE SPEAK TO ME OF MORE?!"

The Creator's scream hits Scratch with a force even greater than that of the sawblade. Even now, that spinning grindwheel clatters to the floor, gouging into the polished tiles of the laboratory before its motor finally fails. With a decisive, secondary _thump_, a fist-sized lump of mangled robotics lands down beside it.

The thrown blade has carved out a chromium eye.

But the red mist has descended, and the wrath of the Father of Machines is not so easy to sate.

Face purple with rage, Robotnik levels the _other _device at the mutilated badnik. The remaining half of Scratch's cybernetic vision is already blinded by buzzing static, and clogged with 'CRITICAL DAMAGE' prompts. So it does not even get the tenth-of-a-second warning it would otherwise have enjoyed, as the cauterizing laser charges to life.

Blue iridescence vomits forth from the Doctor's outstretched hand, a coherent ray of photonic death. For a single instant, it washes every other colour out of Eggman's laboratory. The beam lances through the robot's right shoulder-joint, affixing a stubby mechanical wing to its ovoid torso. It spins the badnik around; the laser jumps as Robotnik flicks his wrist, and an amputated steel wing joins the eye-wreck upon the floor.

Scratch nearly manages to remain standing. The machine's balance gyros are _very _well-designed. But Eggman knows exactly where to strike, knows that the processors can't recalculate a center of mass redistribution _quite_ that fast. The badnik staggers once, twice, its talons scraping for purchase against the polished floor; then it falls, with the crashing sound of an overturned cutlery drawer.

Thin lines of smoke trail from the stub of its wing; sparks drip like electronic blood from the severed wires inside the ruin of its face. Yet still, it perceives, as its Father advances. The clarion of damage warnings within its brain almost drowns out the Master's incoherent rage, almost drowns out the thudding, heavy footfalls, and the scrape of vinyl on steel as Robotnik coils brutal, shaking hands around its extensible neck. Throttling. Screaming.

The fact that robots cannot be strangled to death is of little comfort. Scratch almost wishes that it could be.


End file.
